Three Months!

I have now been a resident of Jordan for three months, time has gone by so quickly and I realized that it has been one month since my last blog post! I have been keeping busy and taking pictures so that I can share with you! Updates on my outstanding items: my house isn’t rented yet but with the coming of spring I anticipate that will resolve soon! My big shipment of our household effects are in the country and awaiting customs sign off so that they can be delivered to me and my job is still pending my clearance which is in the works. So with that admin business out of the way, lets get to the fun stuff…

What I’ve been doing: still exploring and LEARNING! One of the nice things about being at a big embassy like the one here in Amman is all of the people you meet. I have become involved in a few “groups”; vegetarian/vegan diet people, dog/animal lovers, yoga people, moms, work people, volunteers and with each group comes different outings and invitations. We did our first brunch with the work crew at the W hotel. Mike and I had gone there for my birthday and going back with the big group was fun! I snapped a gorgeous shot of the dessert table before it was eaten! This is a great brunch, the food is amazing and the drinks are bottomless!

We went to visit Carakale Brewery again with a big group of Mike’s work friends to celebrate a birthday and had a great time!

As I mentioned in my last blog, the girls and I had tickets to meet each other in Londontown and I caught this scene as I was packing… Finn started to get a little bit of suitcase anxiety after Mike started traveling a few years ago. His body language says it all… sorry bud – mom needed to visit her human children!

I was so excited to see the girls in London, it had been since January 10th that we’d last seen each other and we were more than ready! I arrived on Tuesday night and booked a hotel close to the airport so that I could go meet them there in the morning. I set my alarm early, checked their flight and found out it had been delayed for three hours out of Dulles which meant more sleep for me but a long day/night for them! Seeing them come through the international arrivals gate at Heathrow was such a great moment, my good traveling girls. They rested a little at the airport before hitting the Underground (where more resting occurred) to Kilburn where our AirBnB was in Northwest London (for more rest!). I was properly rested so I ventured out and took a look around.

Since we had 2 full days to explore we decided to go full on tourist and bought tickets for the Big Bus. We took the local bus from right outside our flat to the city center where we took the Red Line tour (Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben, London Eye, Tower of London, London Bridge, etc…) atop the classic double decker. It was a great experience and we learned a lot from the tour guide. Once back in our neighborhood we walked to the pub – North London Tavern – which had great local Camden Brewery beer on tap AND an awesome vegan selection, which Amelia appreciated! Day two we got a lovely breakfast in the ‘hood and bussed back down into the city where we ventured into Kensington to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. From the bus I saw this art installation, was intrigued by the concept of “even nothing changes”, took a picture and researched.

The ‘retrospective’ exhibition of the Mexican artist Stefan Brüggemann
entitled Text Pieces (1997 — 2014), consists of twenty-six works in total, drawn
from the extensive corpus of the artist’s works with language from his early
career to the present.

While in Kensington Gardens we came upon an area where parakeets were landing in people’s hands so they could have a bit of seed. So we joined the crowd and the girls had a great experience feeding the birds!

Next up was to visit Brick Lane, a funky area of London that had tons of thrift shops and art – then back to the flat to watch kooky British TV shows and rest up. The following day was our flight out and we had one last place to visit before checking out of the AirBnB and catching the tube to the airport; Abbey Road Studios. I have been a fan of the Beatles for as long as I can remember so it was very special for me!

We walked across that famous crosswalk, visited the gift shop and then off to the airport. The girls flew out of terminal 2 and I flew out of terminal 3 so we said our goodbyes in the train station and headed off to our respective departure zones.

Back to Amman and back to the grind of the retired life – learning Arabic, teaching English, exploring new neighborhoods, art galleries and restaurants as well as attending a fundraising event and going on my second Ecohike. The weather in Amman has been unseasonably cooler and rainier than past years, it sounds kind of like the weather in Virginia – gorgeous and sunny one day, rainy and cold another. Here is a map that I used in my English class when we talked about seasons, I put a black dot for where I am so that you can see the temperature here is comparable to southern Georgia/northern Florida in the US and since I’m in the northern hemisphere – it’s Spring in Jordan!

During a recent excursion I found some great urban murals while I looked for the cafe where I was to pay for an upcoming Ecohike! I also found a great art gallery that I hope to visit more during my time in Amman.

This might be a good place for me to post a video of the “visitors” we had to the area behind our apartment recently. Throughout Jordan you see flocks of sheep and goats sometimes with a donkey and often with Canaan dogs and always with one or two shepherds. They come to the green areas (which are aplenty due to the extended rainy season!) so that the animals can eat and rest and then they walk through the streets.

My favorite thing to do in Jordan so far has been to participate in the Ecohikes, if you really know me then you know why! Aside from taking care of our planet, I have gotten to meet so many cool people, clocked in some hiking miles, seen amazing views and beautiful landscapes. This past hike had a bonus of eating traditional food made by the women of the Bader area where we hiked west of Amman.

English class at CRP is going very well – still maintaining 13-16 students in attendance and we have grown very fond of each person. I love this new installment on the stairs that lead to our classroom and enjoyed helping one of my students, a lady my age, read each step in english before class this week. After class my co-teacher and I poked our heads into the beauty school graduation party and found that two of our students (who weren’t in English class that day) were GRADUATES! I was so proud of them, strong and beautiful women.

Had a nice outing with some of the other English teacher volunteers at the world famous Hashem’s in downtown Amman this week.

Then off to the world famous Habibah Sweets for some kanafeh for dessert!

Speaking of sweet, one of the guards at the Embassy who knows I’m studying and tries to talk to me in arabic had this for me:

That was just the sweetest gesture, they all smile and light up when I try to engage with them in arabic but really – I am just now learning letters, vocabulary words and conjugation. (yuck) I need to learn how to say in arabic “it’s gonna be a while, people!” LOL.

Finally, I was able to put together a group doggie play date this weekend at a new place that has an indoor hall. It felt good to make some plans with new people and get to learn about them as the dogs played – and they played so well together. We have another date set up for next Friday so more pups can join in the fun. Finn REALLY needed to get out of the apartment and have a good tear.

What I’ve been watching: we watched (finished) The OA, The Umbrella Academy, After Life. Started the new seasons of our Bravo shows(shhh). On the plane to and from London I watched Bohemian Rhapsody (liked! it was soooo hard to not sing), Crazy Rich Asians (liked!), Table 19 (This wasn’t bad – I’d never heard of it and it served its purpose of passing the time!)
Next up for travel is a trip to Italy at the end of April – we will be going to Bologna and Rimini with a jaunt to the Republic of San Marino squeezed in there. In the meantime, I need to get back at my fitness, I had a good run going and then I got a bad sore throat for like two days and I was a baby about it and it knocked me off my game. I mean, I DID hike for 6 miles last weekend…
I hope everyone has a great week, thank you so much for reading! bye for now!